The funny agony of mail-order airplanes
In my 30+ years of plastic modeling, the only kit I’ve ever been excited enough about to pre-order is the Airfix 1/48 scale Sabre F.4—the Royal Air Force version of the beloved F-86. The first boxing of this kit came out in the spring of 2021, and it was on my doorstep as soon as Hannants could get it across the Atlantic and into the U.S. interior. (Thirteen business days.)
The Sabre itself. It has since been joined in the house by three identical twins.
It was a Tuesday, and I was alone in the house for a precious hour, slow workday, and here comes the embodiment of my aviation obsession. It’s plastic, it’s British, and it’s a Sabre. Is it strange to say the polystyrene smelled good? It did.
It reminded me of those times when I was a kid buying G.I. Joe vehicles through mail order, using the little paper forms that came in the action figures’ packaging or in magazines. Allow 6-8 weeks for delivery, the forms always said. It always seemed to take exactly seven weeks, but I could never be totally sure because there was no such thing as tracking or shipping notifications or any of that.
Things would really heat up at about the 5.5-week mark. I’d run up the driveway every day after school, panting, straining to see into the car port where the delivery people left packages.
“It could be early…”
Usually it wasn’t, and my heart dropped a little and I tried to suck it up and hide it right away.
Back to the present day and the Sabre. I knew already (courtesy of CAD images posted online) that this is not Airfix’s best kit. It’s arguably not even the best 1/48 scale Sabre on the market (though I think it’s underrated).
But that doesn’t matter.
I think this Sabre is total magic to me because I had no control over it getting to me. No instant gratification. No assured gratification, even.
It was just out there over the Atlantic somewhere.
This mythical object into which I had no visibility.
For 13 days.
Chilling on its own.
Like these tiny paragraphs are.
Let’s not overdo the moral here. It’s no revelation that we often can’t control the things that are coming to us.
But for some reason I’m satisfied to know that the itch of impatience is just as real at age 40 as it was at age 10. I think it means I have an obsession that’s special and enduring. I’m grateful for it.
Well, will you look at that. Airfix is going to release a 1/48 Fairey Gannet…